It is generally known that the repeated consumption of habit-forming drugs such as alcohol, minor tranquilizers, stimulantia, opiates, hallucinogens, nicotine in many instances leads to different degrees of addiction. Typically, such addiction is characterized by a need or desire to continue the use of the drug and to obtain it, not seldom by all means, and further by a tendency to increase its dosage. This usually results in a psychological and usually a physiological dependence on the effects of such drugs and eventually has a detrimental effect on the addicted individual and on society.
Once a certain degree of addiction is reached, abstention of habit-forming drugs becomes a serious problem and is often accompanied by undesirable physical and/or psychic symptoms. Therefore, an agent decreasing or overcoming such addiction and, if possible, alleviating or removing the symptoms related to the withdrawal of such habit-forming drugs would be highly welcomed, not only by drug addicts, but also by society in general.